What We’re Reading: “The Daughters of Kobani”

by Andrew Downing

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a best-selling author, known for her stories about women in war. She has also given successful TED Talks on women entrepreneurs and the importance of including women in the combat hero-story. Her latest book, The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice, tells the amazing account of Kurdish women fighters that helped defeat ISIS in Syria.

The Daughters of Kobani is an important story because it portrays women leading troops and excelling at military operations. As Lemmon says in her TED Talk about women on the frontline, these women prove you can be fierce and you can be feminine. This is an essential message for everyone to hear: WOMEN CAN BE STRONG COURAGEOUS COMMANDING LEADERS.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, until recently, we have only seen male leaders in movies, on TV, and in books. Due to this constant message we have developed unconscious gender biases toward leadership.

While we need to eventually transition away from idolizing command style leadership, we also need to understand where it has taken us and how we got here. There are very few women leaders portrayed in media. While I applaud making movies featuring powerful female heroes and all-female casts, it's not enough. Where are the female versions of "Braveheart" and "Gladiator" or "Remember the Titans" and "Miracle?" We need to see more women leaders in action.

These symbols of leadership in media matter! And this is why you need to read The Daughters of Kobani (and Lemmon's other book, Ashley's War). It's not a movie with a female leader, but this book (and others like it) is an important piece of a collective movement to portray women as strong capable leaders.